Why We Want Our Female Celebrities to Just Stand There and Look Pretty, with their Damned Mouths Shut

By Erin Elizabeth Kurtz

Dixie Chicks made the cover, for daring to be "uppity" but is EW celebrating them here, exploiting them, or just
riding their sacrificial wave to the bank?

In March 2003, Natalie Maines, the lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, told a captive London audience that
she and her fellow band mates were ashamed to be from the same state as President George W. Bush.What followed was a firestorm of controversy.The darlings
of the country music scene (they were able to crossover to pop stardom yet still keep their country dirt road cred) were suddenly
being boycotted from radio stations.Those same radio stations spent countless
hours reviling the Dixie Chicks instead of playing any sort of music, in itself a sort of victory.The Dixie Chicks became the new vanguard of free speech, posing nude on the cover of Rolling
Stone and talking to Diane Sawyer.Despite the damage control, the
trio had to deal with protesters outside their concerts on the American leg of their world tour.These protesters were not necessarily former Dixie Chicks fans, their album sales stayed consistent throughout
the whole mess, but conservatives that support President Bush.(My conservative
republican cousin to this day holds the Dixie Chicks in the same camp as communists and the French.)

In August 2003, (at the end of the
Dixie Chicks firestorm) Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that he was going to run for governor of California.This announcement was met with applause.In
fact, the only people who were angered by his entrance in the gubernatorial race were California Democrats who were probably
opposed to the re-call in the first place.(I should know I was one of them.)Arnold’s politicizing of himself
was welcomed with open arms, but he belonged to the same party as President Bush who had a very high approval rating.(Also of interest to people on the celebrity-politico front was Barbara Streisand
misspelling “Gephardt” in an email.)Fast forward, a year later and
Ben Affleck is campaigning hard for John Kerry.During the Democratic National
Convention, B. Fleck (as he is lovingly called) made the rounds on all the morning news programs as well as a good number
of evening ones.Despite the few quips about Ben wanting to get a date with one
of Senator John Kerry’s daughters, few made a big deal about Ben strutting his politics around our airwaves.

So what did
the American public care about during this time?We heard all about Linda Ronstadt
receiving jeers from crowd as well as a pink slip from the Aladdin hotel for dedicating a song, The Eagles’ Desperado, to Michael Moore (everyone’s favorite liberal propagandist).Linda just kept on singing to Michael Moore and good portions of her audience kept on leaving.Similarly, Whoopi Goldberg received her walking papers from Weight Watchers for making jokes about President
Bush at a Democratic fundraiser.A week later Margaret Cho was dropped from yet
another Democratic fundraiser for fear, she would make a similar display.(If
people cannot make jokes about President Bush at a Democratic fundraiser then where exactly should we make them? Apparently,
on all the late night shows with male hosts.)

Most people will claim that they do not
care what celebrities have to say about politics, but they lie.Celebrities don't
just entertain us, they are the standard by which we measure ourselves, and in learning of their scandalous
love lives, seeing looking bad without makeup on, and wearing cool clothes that we can buy, we worship and condemn accordingly.With this increased involvement their personal lives, their opinions on matters
of state are not far behind.Celebrities have been put up on the pedestal
and as the cliché goes, what goes up must come down.We need a scapegoat and
our female celebrities seem to be the perfect for the job.The American media
has long taken delight in the destruction of the heroes it helped build, but this modern day witch-hunt has been especially
heinous.The political climate has some bearing on the situation.In what has become the most polarized election in recent memory it certainly sells more papers to pit one
side against the other.Is it necessary to pit the entirety of the conservative
right against pop singers or a comedian?The feud created between Lindsay Lohan
and Hillary Duff is equally annoying (and reminiscent of high school) but at least those two are on equal footing.Johnny Depp did not have to go on a news magazine to defend what some viewed as a particularly harsh
critique of the Bush Administration.In addition, while the controversy surrounding
their opinions still follows the Dixie Chicks around no matter what they do, Johnny Depp is still smarting from an Oscar nomination
and some wins at the MTV Movie Awards without a mention of his verbal gaffe.

This does not stop at those speaking out against President Bush; much has
been made of Britney Spears cameo in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, in
which she states (in between gum smacks) that American should trust the President.Why
did Michael Moore choose Britney Spears to represent the blind following of President Bush without question?Was the half of the population that thinks President Bush is doing a good job busy that day?Michael Moore could have talked to Toby Keith.He did after
all write that great patriotic ballad Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue. (In
the song, he says something along the lines of shoving a boot up a terrorist’s ass, so obviously the man has extensive
knowledge of world affairs.)Michael Moore played on and re-enforced the idea
that blonde women are stupid.(I say blond women seeing as how I have never heard
a blond joke where the pronoun “he” is used.)

It would seem
that despite all the advancements women have made, the old stereotypes are still prevalent or at least entertaining.Media outlets will always run the story that is going to make money and they will
drag the story out if that means they are going to make more money.If the public
does not buy into the story then the story is no longer news.Simply put Johnny
Depp and Ben Affleck do not fit into what the American public thinks of when they think those we want to string up.It is still taboo when a women speaks her mind as opposed to a man.What
we need is not more high profile women to speak their minds, instead the public needs to change its perceptions of all
women who openly express themselves.To quote First Lady hopeful, Teresa
Heinz Kerry, “My right to speak my mind, to have a voice, to be what some have called ‘opinionated,’ is
a right I deeply and profoundly cherish. And my only hope is that, one day soon, women — who have all earned their right
to their opinions — instead of being called opinionated, will be called smart and well-informed, just like men.”